AP Photo/Robert RayChicago public school teachers walk a picket line outside Lane Tech High School on Tuesday, the second day of a strike in the nation's third-largest school district. Negotiations by the two sides failed to come to an agreement Monday in a bitter contract dispute over evaluations and job security.
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Chicago public school teachers walk a picket line outside Lane Tech High School on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2012, on the second day of a strike in the nation's third-largest school district. Negotiations by the two sides failed to come to an agreement Monday in a bitter contract dispute over evaluations and job security. (AP Photo/Robert Ray)
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LANSING, MI — Penalties for striking teachers would be eliminated and subject to bargaining if the union-backed Protect Our Jobs proposal is approved, opponents said.

But Protect Our Jobs representatives said strikes would still be illegal, and Michigan teachers would still be prevented from walking off the job like educators in Chicago did this week.

The ballot proposal would enshrine collective bargaining into the state constitution, and Attorney General Bills Schuette said about 170 existing laws would be voided or changed.

Citizens Protecting Michigan’s Constitution representatives said memo from the state’s largest teachers union spells out that teacher strikes would still be illegal, but unions could negotiate that members would be reimbursed for lost pay.

“The union bosses behind this deceptive proposal are telling parents it will not legalize teacher strikes, but what they don’t tell parents is that it would eliminate the penalties that make the word ‘illegal’ mean anything,” said Nick De Leeuw, spokesman for Citizens Protecting Michigan’s Constitution.

“Our kids deserve teachers in the classroom, not on the picket line, but the MEA’s own internal documents admit that is exactly the kind of Chicago-style crisis Proposal 2 could unleash in Michigan.”

The Michigan’s Public Employee Relations Act establishes the only legal penalty for teachers who walk out on their classrooms; a fine equal to one day’s pay for each school day spent on strike.

The act was amended in 1994 to prevent unions from negotiating into contracts that strikers would be reimbursed for any money lost during a walkout, De Leeuw said.
De Leeuw said an Michigan Education Association memo tells members about various changes that would be enacted should Protect Our Jobs be approved.

“The prohibited bargaining topics created by 1994 PA 112 and included in Section 15(3) of PERA would No longer exist, (including)… Any compensation or additional work assignment intended to reimburse an employee for or to allow an employee to recover any monetary penalty imposed under PERA,” the memo reads.

Protect Our Jobs spokesman Dan Lijana said the ballot proposal language “is crystal clear that strikes by teachers would still be illegal, and that strikers would still be subject to legislative action.”

Lijana said the penalties could be subject to bargaining, but that means that a school district and the union would have to come to agree on any reimbursement.

“Collective bargaining means that both sides must come to an agreement on an issue,” he said.